We recently diagnosed a three-year-old dog with canine heartworm disease. The dog was a local dog; he did not have any travel history outside of the area. He got infected here, in Cambridge!

When the laboratory reported the positive result, they also advised us they had counted 1740 larvae in the one millilitre of his blood. To put things into perspective, 1 teaspoon equals 5 mL. That means that every teaspoon of this particular dogs blood contained approximately 7000 baby heartworms!

Sadly, the dog was so sick that he had to be euthanized today.

I would like to share the message that this parasite is very much still out there! All dogs should be on a parasite prevention program. This disease is very easy to prevent, but very hard to treat. And, it only takes one mosquito bite for a dog to become infected!

The parasite can be harboured in other dogs, but also in wild canids such as coyotes.

Our Heartworm positive dog had to be euthanized today. He was very very sick and his prognosis was grim. He is not suffering anymore.

RIP our handsome friend!

We are going to try to make sure you did not die in vain. We are going to spread the word about how awful heartworm disease is in dogs. We are going to tell people out there that heartworm is still very common in Ontario! Hopefully other dogs can be saved by learning from your situation. We, at Hespeler Animal Hospital, will never forget you!

These videos are obviously not from our patient but other dogs. They, however, highlight how gross these worms are!

Warning, the one below is graphic! It shows live worms being surgically extracted from an infected dog’s heart.